Genesis 12
12
1 Then the Lord said to Abram: "Depart from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, and come into the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you will be blessed.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
4 And so Abram departed just as the Lord had instructed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5 And he took his wife Sarai, and Lot, the son of his brother, and all the substance which they had come to possess, and the lives which they had acquired in Haran, and they departed in order to go to the land of Canaan. And when they arrived in it,
6 Abram passed through the land even to the place of Shechem, as far as the famous steep valley. Now at that time, the Canaanite was in the land.
7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and he said to him, "To your offspring, I will give this land." And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 And passing on from there to a mountain, which was opposite the east of Bethel, he pitched his tent there, having Bethel to the west, and Hai on the east. He also built an altar there to the Lord, and he called upon his name.
9 And Abram traveled, going out and continuing further on, toward the south.
10 But a famine occurred in the land. And Abram descended to Egypt, to sojourn there. For famine prevailed over the land.
11 And when he was close to entering Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai: "I know you to be a beautiful woman.
12 And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'She is his wife.' And they will put me to death, and retain you.
13 Therefore, I beg you to say that you are my sister, so that it may be well with me because of you, and so that my soul may live by your favor."
14 And so, when Abram had arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was exceedingly beautiful.
15 And the princes reported it to Pharaoh, and they praised her to him. And the woman was inducted into the house of Pharaoh.
16 In truth, they treated Abram well because of her. And he had sheep and oxen and male donkeys, and men servants, and women servants, and female donkeys, and camels.
17 But the Lord scourged Pharaoh and his house with great wounds because of Sarai, the wife of Abram.
18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and he said to him: "What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife?
19 For what reason did you claim her to be your sister, so that I would take her to me as a wife? Now therefore, behold your mate, receive her and go."
20 And Pharaoh instructed his men about Abram. And they led him away with his wife and all that he had.
Genesis 12
12
God picked Abram
1This story about Abram started when God said to him, “Abram, I want you to leave your country, your father’s family and all your relatives, and go to the country that I will show you.#Acts 7:2-4; Hebrews 11:8 2And I will give you a big family, and they will become a great nation, and I will do good things for you and your family, and I will make your mob strong. Then everyone will know about you and your family, and everyone will respect you. And you and your family will do good things for other people. 3If anyone does good things for you and your family, I will do good things for them. But, if anyone does bad things to you, and if they make trouble for you and your family, I will curse them and make trouble for them. I will use your family to do good things for all the families in the world.”#Galatians 3:8
Abram and his family went to Canaan country
4-5Abram was 75 years old when he left the town called Haran and went to the country called Canaan. That was the country that God told him to go to. He took his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot with him. He also took all the things and all the workers that they got in Haran, and they all went to the new country called Canaan. 6Abram and everyone with him walked through that new country, and they went to a town called Shekem, and they camped there, near a big tree at a place called Moreh. The people that lived in that country were called the Canaan mob, and they didn’t know God. 7God showed himself to Abram there, and he said to him, “I will give this country to your son, and to all the people that will be born into his family later on.” So Abram piled up stones to make a table with a flat top. It was a special place for him to burn an animal to show right respect to God.#Acts 7:5; Galatians 3:16
8Later on, Abram and his mob left Shekem, and they went south to the hill country that was on the east side of a town called Bethel, and they camped between Bethel and another town called Ayi. Bethel was to the west of his camp and Ayi was to the east. Then Abram piled up stones there to make another special table, and he burned animals on it to show respect to God. He prayed to God, and he called God by his special name Yahweh.
9After that, Abram and his mob kept going south to the dry desert country.
Abram and his family went to Egypt
10At that time, there wasn’t much food in that country. Everyone was short of food, so Abram and everyone with him went south to live in another country, called Egypt. 11Just before they got to Egypt, Abram said to his wife, Sarai, “You are a really beautiful woman. 12I reckon the men in Egypt will see you, and they will say, ‘That beautiful woman is Abram’s wife. Let’s kill Abram, so that we can have her for ourselves.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13So listen. You have to tell everyone that you are my sister. Then they will be good to me, and they will not kill me.”#Genesis 20:2; 26:7
14And that’s what happened. They got to Egypt, and the people there looked at Sarai, and they saw that she was really beautiful. 15Some of them worked for the big boss of Egypt, and they told him, “Sarai is really beautiful.” So that big boss took her to live in his house. 16That boss was very good to Abram, because he thought that Abram was Sarai’s brother. He gave Abram sheep, and goats, and cows, and bulls, and donkeys, and camels, as well as men and women that had to work for Abram.
17God was not happy, because Sarai was living with the big boss of Egypt, so God made him really sick, and God made everyone that lived in his house really sick too. 18-19Then that big boss found out that Sarai was already Abram’s wife, and he got really wild. He sent somebody to get Abram, and he said to Abram, “You did a really bad thing to me. You tricked me. You didn’t tell me that Sarai is your wife. You said, ‘She is my sister,’ and you let me marry her. Now, here is your wife. Take her back, and then get out of my country.” 20Then the big boss told his soldiers, “Get Abram, and Sarai, and everything they own, and all their workers, and send them out of Egypt. Send them away, and do it right now.” So his soldiers did that. They sent Abram and his mob away from Egypt.
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